Please help with first opal purchase

[Buttercookies]

Hi ladies and gents, please look at this opal ring and tell me if it’s a good opal or not. I could not stop staring at this dazzling opal ring, and I know nothing about opal. My mother recently bought a cracked opal ring from a local store. I really want to buy her something better than that. Bless her heart.

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[prs]

Almost all the photos seem to be designed to show the beautiful, vivid sea green and blue play of color around the edges and at the point of the stone. In the one face up hand shot the whole center of the stone seems to be a rather dull blue with no play of color.

Sorry, but I think I'd want to see more face up photos to ensure the center of that opal is more lively than it appears.

 

[Buttercookies]

Almost all the photos seem to be designed to show the beautiful, vivid sea green and blue play of color around the edges and at the point of the stone. In the one face up hand shot the whole center of the stone seems to be a rather dull blue with no play of color.

Sorry, but I think I'd want to see more face up photos to ensure the center of that opal is more lively than it appears.

She send me these.

 

[Bron357]

Opal lover here.
Ok, the ring is lovely but that’s not a “great” opal.
Black opal carries a premium price BUT if it’s not representative of a good quality one, there’s not much point paying the premium.
I‘ll stick to Australian Opals.
Opals come in different varieties. Black opal is named as such because the ”background” is very dark (it’s never actually black) and that provides the best display background for colour play.
Opal can show every colour of the rainbow in its colour play.
Blue and green only colour play is the “lowest” tier.
Then including purple, yellow and orange is next tier
top tier is red.
With opal you are buying the opal play. How much of the opal face shows colour and does it “move” as you reorient the gem?
Most Opals will have “dead” spots but the better the opal the less dead areas, the better the opal, the colour play will change colours as you change orientation.
Then comes “patterns“, some have names and are expensive and desirable. Most Opals will be either predominately pin fire - lots of little spots of colour, or broad flash - larger sections of colour play.
Then there’s variety.
white opal or common opal is the cheapest / most common. It’s an opaque white background with colour play. It’s usually not very colourful.
Crystal opal is better, it is more translucent so the colour play can be more 3 dimensional.
Then there’s jelly opal (more translucent), semi crystal, semi black or dark opal (not as dark a background to qualify as black) plus Boulder Opal, Opal Fossils and Matrix opal.
I do like the ring in question. The opal is nice but not great. My concern with that particular setting is the likely “catching on everything” tendency because of how the diamonds are set. That could be very annoying.
There are some options on eBay you might consider (I can post up item numbers if you like) or have a look at BlackOpals direct website. Justin is a cutter in Lightening Ridge. He also posts up very interesting, entertaining and informative videos on You Tube. Under Black Opal Direct. Definitely worth a look.
Here is my Crystal Opal ring. It is a good example. It shows a lot of red over a lot of the surface and changes colour play depending on the angle viewed. It is also remains colourful in low light which is uncommon with Opals.